Galain's Stories

Goodbye

Entering Alcarinque felt strange. Ghet would forever be grateful to Chez for the refuge he'd given her, a place to hide from pain and responsibility that was more than she could take. She'd never really been completely free of it, though, and as she stepped out of the portal, the full weight dropped back onto her shoulders. She'd never been good at hiding her emotions, and even had he not been wired into her soul, the pain and guilt would have been plain for her husband to see.

Still, to see him, to speak, it was so hard. She couldn't pretend things were in any way normal. She reached up a hand to stroke his cheek; tender, desperate. Blue eyes filled with tears. "Oh my love. I..." She looked down, choking back a laugh. "We need to talk."

Galain simply stood where he was, silently watching his wife. He'd been seated in one of the large, arched windows in their apartments, simply gazing outside, but not quite seeing the small amount of activity taking place down below in the stately rose gardens that fronted the courtyard and palace. The gardeners were out today, keeping order amongst the many hedges.

The past two weeks had been a new sort of hell for the Elen, quite apart from what he'd experienced before his wife's healing.

"Yes, we do," he finally said, reaching out to gently cup Ghetsuhm's chin and tilt her face upward. He regarded her tear-filled eyes, lost in their unique denim depths for several moments. It had been a frightful time within his soul these past two weeks and what he saw in his wife's eyes and felt in her soul caused a shaky, feverish sensation of anxiety to seize his body and pause his heart for several beats.

But gods she looked so good, tears and all. A smile curved his lips and he kissed her.

"First though... I've missed you," he said. "Come and sit?" He indicated the window seat, more than ample enough to seat two. He caught at her hand and squeezed it, relieved when he felt his heart begin beating again.

Ghet nodded, not quite trusting her voice, and went where he led her. She wanted to curl against his chest, under his arm, seeking comfort, but it wouldn't be fair. Keeping hold of his hand, she settled turned towards him, so they could see each other's faces. "Okay. There are some things I need to tell you. I... I've never lied to you, and I've been kind of proud of that, that you always knew how I felt. I never lied to you about Ro. You knew I still loved him and you never once made me feel bad about that. Except... now I feel like I have lied to you, because I've kept things from you."

She sighed, and rubbed a hand over her eyes. This was just the first step along a terrible path. "Galain... when I brought Ro back... I was mad. The illness and the stress had snapped me, and I wouldn't have done what I did otherwise. But I still did it. I took Rhagi away because I didn't intend to come back. Galain, love, I offered to marry him. I'm sorry."

Damn it, there went his heartbeat again. The Elen's smile wavered his expression took on an uncertainty. No... he'd never actively begrudged Ghetsuhm her love for Y'Roden. He'd had his own confusions about love for too long to focus on jealousy or anger when it came to what his wife felt for others. He'd always felt an immense security in her love, knowing they'd chosen each other on purpose, and had overcome an enormous amount of adversity to achieve what they had now.

"But you were mad at the time. There's nothing to apologize for. You were sick and when you're sick and out of your mind you do things. I mean... that though would have to be the most absolutely insane thing possible," he said, speaking slowly, trying to inject a tone of humor into his words. The look in his eyes didn't match though. The tears in his wife's eyes told him she wasn't finished. Surely this was the only thing she'd kept from him though, and it wasn't pleasant... but it was survivable.

Galain squeezed Ghetsuhm's hand gently.

"What else?" he found himself speaking again, his mouth operating independently of the rest of himself.

Ghet winced. For some reason, all the calm and reasonable just made it worse. She shook her head slowly, not sure what she was denying. "I would have gone through with it. I would always have hated the way it was done, but I wouldn't have backed away. Neither of us remembered what happened, by the time he came out, I was unconscious... he didn't know I'd made the offer until that day I saw him in S'Hea, after I healed. We're still trying to piece together exactly what happened. Once he realised... Galain, it's what he wants. Me, to himself. To know how close it had been, well, it was all a bit overwhelming." Next step. "I very nearly slept with him. I would have, if it hadn't been for... well. I would have. And if the circumstances arose again, the result would be the same." Her voice cracked. "How could I do that to you? How could I live married to you and know I was going to cheat on you?"

He broke the hand he was squeezing.

He didn't mean to, but it happened and he could only stare down and then away, pulling himself away from her and backing up against the stone behind him.

"How could you..." he repeated, almost mindlessly. "How could you live married to me and know this?"

It sounded like he was merely repeating her, but the inflection cast upon the words as he spoke indicated he was doing more than that. He gave his wife a puzzled look.

"You said I was everything to you," he finally said. "Why cheat?" He was trying to focus on the fact that she'd not cheated, but in her heart she had... and she would. She's said this.

Why cheat now? the words were silent.

Ghet winced, her breath hissing through her teeth. She jerked her hand away, jarring it, but the physical pain was almost welcome. It distracted her from the pain in her heart. "Why cheat?" she said bitterly, harshness entering her voice, "Why have I always cheated? Because that's who I am. Because the pull is too strong. Dammit, I don't want to hurt you! I don't want to hurt either of you, but I wasn't left that choice. I wanted it to be enough, I wanted to stay with you forever and be your strong, dependable, decent wife. But that isn't who I am! I have to deal, somehow, with the fact that you both love me, and I love both of you, and I fit with both of you, and I have to break one of you in half."

She cradled her broken hand in her whole one, remotely wondering why the tears just wouldn't fall. "It's not supposed to be like this. There's supposed to be one path for everyone that's right, one person that makes them complete. If you listen to your heart, you're supposed to know what to do. And all I learned was that my heart will always be divided against itself. I will never be whole, and I will never be free of pain. I'll never be content. I'll love the both of you until I die. There is nothing I can do, nothing I can will, that will change that.

"The last time it came to this, I thought I had no decision to make, because I was bonded to you. I told Ro over and over again, I had no choice. I left him, I walked away from him after he saved my life, and I went to you. I can't do that to him again." Now that it came down to it, she was beginning to wonder if he might seriously hurt her. Well. She couldn't say she didn't deserve it. She might well have chosen death over this responsibility. "I'm so goddamn sorry, Galain. This is the worst thing I've ever done in my life. I'm leaving you."

Those last three words hit Galain like a slap to the face and he sat there, his face draining of color. Disbelief, incomprehension, then disbelief again dashed through his mind. Beneath it all a gleeful little demon danced and capered, shrieking, "You couldn't make a choice! She did! You couldn't make a choice! But she did!"

Something dark and supposedly long dead suddenly ate the gleeful creature and the glazed look that had entered Galain's eyes disappeared as he sat forward and then inched toward Ghetsuhm.

"All a lie?" Galain asked, yanking himself away from her mind suddenly, harshness entering his voice before he suddenly stood and paced away. "Of course it was. I mean... you kept going back to him after all. You had to save his life. He's your friend after all and you loved him and..." He shut up and then sat down beside her again.

"After everything we've been through? Tell me you're just playing a weird joke, okay? He's been fine without you. He married Silverthorn for pity's sake. They were perfect for each other. You and I... we've been perfect for each other. We've just had a rough patch is all and things are going to get better and if we just sleep on this we'll wake up and laugh."

His heart was now beating violently and the Elen tried to stop and breathe. He felt himself slipping.

Ghet shrugged, helplessly. There was nothing else she could do. In what he said, she heard the echo of her own words to Y'Roden, her anger at how contradictory it all seemed, her doubt. "Whatever anyone says, is what they think is true at the time. That doesn't mean it will be true forever. Everything I said was true. Most of it still is. Galain, I held you, I comforted you, for months after An'Thaya left you. You loved her. That didn't make your love for me untrue. When I married you, it was in full knowledge that it might not last forever, that it might end in a horrible, painful train-wreck, and I was prepared to risk that, for love. You were already married to someone else, for pity's sake.

"We have been happy. We've been very happy. The vicious irony is that everything was just starting to go right for us. But yes. We have been going through a rough patch, we both know it. I can't go on, shutting myself away from my husband, pretending I don't feel what I do, terrified to let you see to the core of me, because it will hurt you. And you can't wake up tomorrow and go on as if I hadn't told you these things. You couldn't let me go to S'Hea, as I have to, and not think I was making love to him. Galain, it won't work. I just... I know that if I stay with you, I'll only hurt you more."

Her shrug was perhaps more devastating than her words and Galain simply stared at her now and then bowed his head. He silently reached for her hand and let his consciousness settle into the makeup of the soft flesh he held as he wove and knit the broken cells and bones back together. When he was finished he very carefully placed her hand into her lap and withdrew from her before looking back up into his wife's eyes.

"I can't keep you here," he said. "I've never tried to keep you where you didn't want to be be, nor have I tried to stop you from going or doing what you need to do.

"I had thought... I misunderstood... I thought we had forever you know. That'll teach me to think. I misunderstood." He tried to smile, but the haggard look of grief twisted the expression into a grimace he quickly wiped away. He heard wisdom in her words, the recognition of who she was and what she needed in her life, but it was shattering him inside. He regarded her for several long moments. He supposed she had done enough shattering within her own self of late, but it wouldn't be he who would put her back together again. She'd chosen someone else.

"So... I guess... I guess that's it. You're right -- this time I wouldn't let you return to S'Hea. I couldn't. And you have to go, as you say. So that leaves us --" he broke off suddenly and shut his eyes, feeling his soul plummeting downward at breakneck speed.

Ghet leaned in and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, her soul full of grief. "Oh, love, you weren't wrong. I never saw this coming. A year ago... well. You know all this. I forgot myself enough to trust in forever. I'll never do that again. Never." She laid her head on his shoulder. "I'm going to miss you so much. It hurts me, to think about being without you, you've been a part of me for so long." Finally, the tears started to fall, now that she'd lost the insulation of the pain and frustration. "I love you, and I'll never forgive myself for this. Look after our baby for me, okay? Once things have settled down, we can talk about when I'm going to see her. I'll say goodbye, though." In truth, for herself, she'd have taken Aarien with her despite all the confusion in her life, but she knew, she couldn't do that to Galain. Their daughter was so full of life she burned with it, perhaps enough for two.

Galain knew he was nodding his head, but his consciousness was swimming desperately in a maelstrom of confusing emotions. She would never trust in forever again, and neither would he. That was the only certain thing he could sort out from all this. No more forever. She'd been the only one he'd really wanted it with anyway and without her by his side? Forever could go to hell.

That tipped him dangerously toward anger and vague images of the violent breakup he'd endured before tugged at his mind and Galain yanked his thoughts away from that direction. Not here, not now, he told himself silently. Perhaps he was growing up after all, or perhaps not.

"I love you, Ghet. My gods I love you," he said fervently. "You know you have whatever you want or need from me. Okay?" He paused and nearly choked on a hard intake of breath. "Go see Aarien. She has a lot of things she's been saving for you." His voice cracked on the last three words and he could no longer trust himself to speak aloud. Instead he wrapped his own arms around Ghetsuhm and buried his face into that wondrous hair of hers, and then abruptly he broke away.

Ghet clung to Galain, her mind full of fleeting fragments of memory from their time together, the simple incredulity that she would never hold him again, never know the glory of being so much a part of him. And yet... they'd changed each other over the time they'd been together, and those changes would endure.

She took a deep, shaky breath. Clean break. She'd demanded it of Y'Roden, she'd give no less to Galain. "Thank you, love. I can't... I can't tell you how much it means. Whatever I can do to make it easier, you only have to ask. I'll see Aarien, I'll get my things. Before that... I'm sorry, I know it's a lot all at once. But we have to break the bond. I don't know how to do it, but I talked to Venus, and she says she can take care of it. It'll just be like... sliding apart." She rubbed her hands over her tear-streaked face. "I don't like the idea, but the alternative is worse."

Oddly, Galain's thoughts took a wry turn. He'd have to get his heart checked at the rate it was failing so frequently of late. And then he shook himself mentally and understood why he was feeling as he was. Of course the alternative was worse. She was leaving him, going willingly to a man he disliked so intensely it hurt to his core. And if he was still bonded to her he'd still feel everything she felt -- for Y'Roden, and not for himself. Because hells... this choice she'd made meant that really... really she didn't want him anymore. She would fly to Y'Roden with all that she was and he couldn't bear that.

And she'd already talked to her goddess.

Galain's face crumpled and he buried his face with his hands.

'Kay, was about all he could manage and it was silent. Just like sliding apart? Could it be so damn simple? How? After so long? It was unbelievable. All of this was simply unbelievable.

Ghet looked down, eyes on her hands, unable to bear the pain she was inflicting on top of her own. The call she sent out was tired, plaintive, her misery strong enough to swamp the power of Venus's blessing.

Barely a presence, she placed her hands on their bowed, grieving heads, and spoke a word that had no sound, just a shaping of power. Behind her closed eyes, Ghet saw, or thought she saw, a glowing orange ball, a great sun, slowly become two, one golden and too beautiful to look upon, the other fierce and red, already flickering and mutable.

It hurt, not physically, but the loss was palpable. So alone... Ghet recognised the feeling from when Ro had taken the fragment of his soul from her. Like losing a part of herself, a sense, feeling sealed off in a tiny box. For the first time in nearly six hundred years, her soul was hers alone. She cried out in grief, tears running freely over her face.

Reflexively Galain pulled Ghetsuhm to himself, and when he tried to say something all he could was cry out with her. It shouldn't have been so simply done, so painlessly effected, and yet here they were now, two separate beings again, closed off from each other in every way possible. It had been even longer for Galain since he'd been so completely alone and he felt like he'd been struck deaf, dumb and blind all at once. And there'd been no last chance to feel the heated pulsing of the golden roses over their chests. It was all cold now. So cold and so... despair and grief and disbelief settled like a pall over his soul and all he could do was cry with the woman who had been his wife, lover and friend for so long.